


Shame, Swinging from a Pendulum

by Edgelord (lostlikeme)



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Asphyxiation, Break Up, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, M/M, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Suicidal threats, no betas we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:46:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25886797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostlikeme/pseuds/Edgelord
Summary: As Jake prepares to fuck Dirk in the home they built together, on the leather couch in front of a mounted stag head and an audience of puppets, he realizes they should probably break up.
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	Shame, Swinging from a Pendulum

**Author's Note:**

> i laughed and cried a lot while writing this

Jake English doesn’t like to leave work early. Scratch that. Jake English doesn’t like to leave work, full stop. Some people might consider a 65-hour work week to be a tad bit overboard, but some people are wrong. Some people aren’t Jake English.

Work gives him something to dedicate his time to, distracts him from stress, and gets him out of the house. What would be his purpose, if not dressing up in a dandy suit and breaking his back all day doing...all that hard work he do. Where would he be, without Karen from accounting, or the nice lady at the front desk who puts out Smarties when she comes in on Mondays?

Jake English _is_ work.

But that’s only part of why he hates leaving it.

Today, he’s sweating the whole car ride home, palming his phone in his pocket. At a stoplight he tries texting Dirk but the messages never deliver successfully. He stares at the little red exclamation point indicating failure to send, narrowly missing a stop sign. He pulls over on the side of the road, trying to catch his breath, waiting for his vision to clear, telling himself to _get it together, ole Jakey boy._

There’s a forest that starts at the edge of the asphalt, at least a mile deep that Jake wishes he could lose himself in. He could leave his phone in the car on the side of the road and get out the camping gear he keeps in the boot. Between his trusty utility knife and the gun in the glove compartment, he could last weeks before Dirk finds him.

But Jake doesn’t get out of the car. He didn’t get out last time, either. In fact, he never does. That’s the path for some smarter, better Jake English, from a timeline where You-Know-Who isn’t president and the world isn’t doomed.

Jake scrolls back through the text message archive between himself and Dirk instead. All he can hear is the sound of his car’s blinkers, ticking like a metronome or the swinging pendulum in a grandfather clock, counting beats, keeping time until time ends.

5:11PM TT: Would have been nice to know you’re coming home late.  
5:16PM GT: Sorry poppit!  
5:16PM GT: Its not technically tardy is it? Missing you heaps!  
5:16PM TT: I don’t know Jake. Does time work differently in your reality?  
5:21PM GT: No time to get into the multiverse while Im at work sweet.  
5:21PM TT: You’re always at work.  
5:29PM GT: You got me there!  
5:30PM TT: When will you be home?  
5:32PM GT: Hopefully soon.  
5:32PM TT: Hopefully?  
5:32PM GT: No need to get upset.  
5:32PM GT: Lets not make mountains out of molehills.  
5:33PM TT: I’m not upset.  
5:33PM TT: And this is the equivalent of moles the size of horses and a hill the size of Mt.Everest  
5:33PM GT: Everything is horse sized to you Dirk.  
5:33PM TT: Yet, you’re the one who likes climbing mountains.  
5:34PM GT: What does that mean?? Did something happen?  
5:34PM TT: You know what it means.  
5:34PM GT: Not sure I do dear.  
5:34PM TT: I am.  
5:34PM TT: If you don’t want to deal with me and my mountain-sized baggage, don’t.  
5:35PM GT: Thats not what I meant.  
5:35PM TT: It’s what you said though.  
5:36PM GT: Where??  
5:36PM TT: You used an idiom that boils down to the bare sum of me grasping for problems out of thin air. A regular Rumplestiltskin spinning bullshit instead of gold.  
5:36PM GT: Rumplestilskin wasnt the one who spun the gold but I’ve got to get back to work now!  
5:36PM TT: So you’re an expert of Rumpelstiltskin now?  
5:37PM TT: Thanks for pointing out that semantic error, it was definitely impeding the flow of the conversation.  
5:38PM GT: Devils in the details!  
5:38PM TT: I’ve got better things to do anyway.  
5:38PM TT: Not sure why you’re in a relationship you don’t have time for.  
5:39PM GT: What better things?  
5:38PM TT: What do you think?  
5:40PM GT: Dirk.  
5:41PM GT: Dirk?  
5:42PM GT: We talked about this...  
5:42PM TT: Trust me, it’s not a threat.  
5:42PM TT: I’m just implying the course of action I will follow through with in response.  
5:42PM TT: Maybe if you were home, I wouldn’t have to.  
5:42PM TT: But that’s not something under my control, is it?  
5:42PM TT: This is. We’ve established that much already.  
5:43PM GT: Youre worrying me.  
5:43PM TT: How is it that even when I’m suicidal, you find a way to make it about you?

Jake can’t bring himself to read what comes next. Where did the conversation take such a wrong turn? Was it when Jake broke out that metaphor about mountains and molehills? Or was the whole thing jimmy-rigged from the start? A relationship strung together with duct tape, good sex, and false hope.

He sets down his phone, turns off the blinkers, and shifts the little green Jeep into drive. The rubber tires grind against the black asphalt when Jake backs up and pulls back onto the empty road. The sun hasn’t set yet. The color reminds him of Dirk’s eyes, sinking into the horizon, watching. Usually, it’s dark by the time he makes it out to this neck of the woods.

The rest of the ride home is a blur. He’s driven it a thousand times. The details are unimportant. Transitory. His body is operating on autopilot; his brain is shooting blanks, working itself like a hamster plastered to the inside of a spinning wheel by centrifugal force.

When he pulls into the driveway, he doesn’t get out of the car. He sits in it, stewing in the heat like a toddler strapped in the backseat in a shadeless Walmart parking lot. The suburban cul-de-sac where they live is quiet.

Jake English is afraid of a lot of things, and finding his boyfriend hanging from a rope in the vestibule is only one of them. Part of him wants to call the police, but he’s afraid of what they’ll do, and more than that, he’s afraid of what Dirk might do, or even worse, that Dirk might never forgive him.

He fumbles with his keys at the front door, picturing Dirk bleeding out from the neck in the bathtub, or in the doorway, with a sword jammed in his guts. Jake’s palm slips on the knob, and once he’s grasped it, the door still sticks until he slams the side of his body into it. Jake is almost certain Dirk is keeping the door like this on purpose, just to watch him struggle when he comes home from work.

When the door finally pops open, Jake stumbles in and looks up. The living room is shockingly clean and unusually devoid of Dorito debris. Dirk is sitting on one of the leather couches, in a faux silk kimono robe, creepily calm for someone clutching a yellow box cutter. His phone is facedown on the cushion beside him. It’s all very dramatic. He resembles a villain from an anime, but something low grade, like a childhood best friend who turns out to be a yandere stalker.

“You’re home early,” Dirk says, face impassive. The combination of the robe and pointy black shades is turning the whole situation into a circus. “Or should I say, on time.”

It’s six o’clock in the evening which is still a mite early for this level of dysfunctional bullshit. Most days, Dirk is lucky to be graced with Jake’s presence before 9PM. Dirk glances at his wrist even though he doesn’t wear a watch, tapping his knee with one end of the box cutter.

Jake grunts, using his shoulder to force the door shut before locking the deadbolt. The back of his jumper is damp, sweated straight through from his button-up shirt. He’s breathing so heavily he can barely talk. 

“Well fuck me dead!” Jake shouts at last. “If it isn’t my bloody boyfriend who is very much _alive_.”

Dirk shrugs one shoulder, just a bit. It slips out of the neckline of the black robe, and Jake tracks the movement despite himself.

“Disappointed?” Dirk sneers. “You knew I was bluffing.”

Jake flexes his fingers in an effort to release tension. He stares at the pair of taxidermied chipmunks they keep on the end table beside the leather couch. Jake shot them a couple years back; Dirk named them after Disney’s Chip and Dale due to their marked resemblance.

“No, possum. Definitely didn’t know you were bluffing.” Jake chews on the inside of his cheek. “I’m expected to read your mind now, am I?”

“Just the texts I send.”

Dirk’s tone is completely deadpan. Jake’s throat is dry. He feels incredibly frustrated, not for the first time today. All that worry, wasted. All those gray hairs in his beard.

“You thought I was going to do it.”

Dirk is almost embarrassed for him. Jake English is easily the most gullible person Dirk has ever personally come to know. Jake looks up, eyes glowing; a forest on fire. He whips his phone out of his back trouser pocket and zeroes in on one of the most recent texts without hesitation. 

“You said, and I quote, ‘really babe, I’m going to do it this time. I’m going to slit my fucking throat’. That was all you, yeah?”

It would make a pretty picture. Wouldn’t it?

Dirk waves him off with the box cutter.

“Babe,” he says. “I say that all the time.”

Jake looks decisively at the kitchen behind his boyfriend. They updated to an open floor-plan years ago to give the illusion of more space. The katanas normally stationed at the kitchen table are gone. In fact, the house is spotless save for a few hand-selected puppets, which is never a good sign. He focuses back on Dirk and slowly steps toward the couch, a hunter trying not to spook the fox caught in his bear trap.

“If I really wanted to kill myself, you wouldn’t know, and I’d be dead.”

This train of thought doesn’t assuage Jake’s anxiety at all.

“I mean - you’d tell me, right love?”

At last, after dithering around the perimeter, Jake sits down carefully on the couch, like a dog who doesn’t know if he’s allowed. Dirk’s body tenses, almost imperceptibly, but Jake notices it nonetheless.

“Not if this is how you’re going to react.”

“You didn’t take my call! I came home straight away!”

Dirk stifles a flinch.

“Yeah, and you’re freaking out. If I really wanted to kill myself you’d shit your pants.” 

“I _did_ think you really wanted to kill yourself and I almost veered into a bloody stop sign! But hey, at least I haven’t shit my knickers, eh? I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“Join the fucking club.” Dirk pushes the metal slider on the utility knife with his thumb until the blade is sticking out. “I could follow through on it if that would make you feel better.”

“Of course not!” Jake looks at the shiny silver triangle. “Quit it.”

Dirk rolls his eyes behind his shades.

If he was going to follow through on any of those suicidal threats, he probably would have done it already. Right? He specifically doesn’t think about how each time he makes another one, he feels a few centimeters closer to falling off the Deep End. How is it that not thinking about something can occur synchronously with thinking about it?

“I’m kidding.”

The plastic box cutter slips in his sweaty hand, accidentally on purpose, leaving a pink line on the back of his hand. The corner of his lips twitch for the first time all night.

“Kind of.”

“Dirk!”

He jerks away when Jake reaches for the weapon in his hand. Dirk holds the blade against his left wrist as he presses back against the arm of the couch, a psychopath holding himself hostage.

“Stop hurting yourself.”

“Make me.”

Jake moves quickly, but Dirk moves quicker. He dodges Jake’s first grab without much effort, but not the second. There isn’t enough time to think, but Jake never does, not during a tussle. It’s kinesthetic intelligence and muscle memory from start to finish.

Unlike him, Dirk’s performance suffers when he doesn’t have time to plan. Jake jerks his wrist closer, sending the box cutter flying, skidding across kitchen tile until the momentum is finally stopped by the edge of a cabinet.

They look at each other for a split second before Dirk lunges with his left hand.

He reaches over the back of the couch, over his right shoulder, and snatches a much larger, heavier weapon from the sofa table, where it was displayed innocuously next to a clay vase. The curved blade alone is at least 10.5 inches, and it looks a hell of a lot more dangerous than the box cutter did, hovering above the network of blue veins in Dirk’s wrist.

“Put the machete down, possum.”

Jake has the good sense to back up and give him some space. He got that machete seven years ago during an expedition in Peru and used it to slice through tree branches thicker than his wrist. He puts both hands up in a show of surrender.

“Fine,” Dirk says.

He pulls the oversized silver blade away from his skin, and the shallow, precise cut he only just started. The machete dips a bit from the weight when Dirk holds it out by the handle toward his boyfriend of nearly eight and a half years.

“You know how to handle it better than I do. You do it.”

Jake falters. This is exactly why he keeps his gun in the glove compartment.

“I…I don’t want to.”

“So you’d rather risk me puncturing an artery?”

Dirk returns the blade to his skin, keeping his eyes on Jake, waiting for a reaction. Jake smiles, so normal and easy Dirk can’t ascertain if it’s real or for show.

“C’mon now, you’re not a wombat. We both know that much.”

“True. But I am mentally unstable.” Jake doesn’t say anything. “What are you afraid will happen?”

A hundred bad scenarios flash through his head. Dirk only imagines one in particular, and it receives all of his focus. This is merely one of many immutable core differences between them.

“You’ll get hurt,” Jake confesses.

Dirk smiles. For the first time in a long time, it feels like Jake understands him.

“That’s the name of the game, babe.”

“Why is that the game again?”

Dirk applies more force to the machete, just enough to break skin. Little droplets of blood seep out as a second cut takes shape parallel to the first. Jake winces. Although he’s seen worse wounds, sutured his own with an open flame, he never saw them self-inflicted like this.

“I think you’ve had enough.”

Jake catches him off guard when he tries to take control, one hand around his wrist, using the other to turn away the blade. The tip catches on Jake’s overshirt anyway, and when Dirk resists, it tears with a loud rip. They both backpedal, Dirk with the machete, Jake with a frown. There’s a few feet of space between them.

The fuzzy material opens up in the middle and falls down, exposing part of his button up shirt and behind that, the black forest of hair on his chest, trailing down his navel and into the waistline of his trousers. He tears off the remaining fabric and balls his hands into fists; they shake like a bottle filled with baking soda and vinegar.

His eyes well with unshed tears.

“I liked that jumper! You know that?”

Dirk hauls himself off the couch in one swift movement, swinging the machete in a loose arc. Jake narrows his eyes. The Drunken Fist. The empty bottle of Japanese liquor on the kitchen counter finally registers. Dirk turns the weapon toward his own stomach in a culturally insensitive reenactment of seppuku.

“Are you taking the piss?” Jake hollers. “It’s not a bloody katana you nutter!”

Dirk makes a run for it, and the whole thing becomes a cartoon chase sequence in a Scooby Doo episode. Jake nearly loses his footing on the Oriental rug in an effort to tackle Dirk and prevent him from impaling himself on the machete. They end up half on the couch, half on the floor, smothered between each other and what looks like a swastika stitched into the pattern on the rug.

“You knew I was a psycho when you hitched your wagon to my mentally deranged pony!”

“And you’ve had your fair suck of the sauce bottle because of it, haven’t you?”

Alcohol only slows Dirk’s reflexes by a few milliseconds, but the dip in reaction time is just enough to give Jake an edge. The edge he needs to put a pin in this dog and pony show. He restrains Dirk by digging a knee into the small of his back and twisting one arm behind him.

Dirk thrashes, wildly swinging the machete in his other hand. When Jake releases him to duck out of the way, Dirk twists around to face him. There’s sweat beading on his temple, and his face is flushed. Judging by the position of the machete, he’s still intent on disemboweling himself. Jake covers Dirk’s hand with his own, trying to pry the handle from his grip.

“Let go, possum.”

“You first, babe.”

Dirk pulls harder, slipping the blade between the folds in his robe, parting the fabric until the tip is brushing his skin.

“You really wanna gut yourself on a Tuesday?”

Dirk moves closer, so the machete is pushing into his stomach. He’s imagined the way his intestines look outside of his own body a hundred times. Jake growls.

“Fine then, have at it!”

Jake forces the machete forward like he’s decided to go along with it. Panicked, Dirk wraps one hand around the blade to grind the action to a halt. Jake pulls back hard instead, yanking the machete through the flesh of Dirk’s fingers, slipping through blood in his half closed fist. With no other choice, Dirk releases his hold on the machete and sinks his teeth into his tongue.

Jake cocks the machete with a smirk. The only thing missing is the double pistols and a wink.

“Gotcha.”

Dirk stares wordlessly at the identical wounds across the bottom segments of his fingers and inner part of his palm. His jaw tightens and pain passes through his eyes, protected by the dark tint of his pointed shades. He was prepared for Jake’s physical aptitude, not his dispassionate follow-through.

It dawns on Dirk with renewed clarity: Jake English bets on Bullfights. This is the same guy who put down his sister’s dog with a shotgun in the backyard.

“Not my first machete fight, love.”

Jake is on him before the shock settles, while he’s still bleeding from the hand and the stomach, drunk on the pain and the sake and the sight of his own blood. He straddles Dirk on the couch and twists at the waist to drop the machete on the coffee table, the one they made together over winter from a cut of Walnut cast in resin. He turns back to Dirk, pulls his head up by his blond hair, and plucks the shades off his face.

Dirk catches his wrist in time but he can’t prevent Jake from flicking it, tossing his sunglasses out of reach. Jake pins his hands to the couch on either side of his head, leaning his weight into the heels of his palms and digging into the soft center of Dirk’s wrists.

“Good on the knives now, yeah?”

“Not even if you break both my wrists, pussy.”

“Christ, Dirk!” Jake takes a deep breath. He’s going to have to get a bigger glove compartment.  
“I don’t need to break your bloody wrists. And that’s no reason for name calling.”

Dirk smirks something shallow without any joy in it. Actually, it looks like he wants to spit in Jake’s face.

“You don’t fuck me hard enough if I don’t get you riled up first.”

Jake stares down at him, pupils dilated. It’s hard to say who Dirk is trying to prove himself to. The thin bones in his wrists grind together when Jake squeezes hard. The image of Dirk - bashed to a pulp, beaten between his own two hands and the floorboards - flickers through his mind.

“Dirk, you are truly testing my patience today. What’s this all really about?”

Dirk grits his teeth and snaps his hips. He doesn’t have the emotional capacity to articulate what this is actually about, and even if he could, he wouldn’t. It’s a matter of principle. Jake rides the wave like a professional bullfighter.

“You know what it’s about,” Dirk insists.

Jake moves suggestively above him, grinding his perfect ass back into Dirk’s crotch. Dirk’s hips twitch, and he thrusts his cock up to meet the curve of his plush rump.

“If a bugger is what you need, all you had to do was ask.”

If looks could cut, Jake would be a eunuch. Dirk narrows his eyes before sliding them all the way shut with a groan.

“Typical Jake,” Dirk grunts, distracted by the friction and the familiarity of Jake above him. “Trying to solve every problem in your life by…swinging your dick at it.”

“Okie-doke then.” Jake releases Dirk’s wrists, leans back, presses his lips into a thin line and pretends to give it some serious thought. “It was the part where I linked you to the Wikipedia page on Rumplestiltskin, wasn’t it?”

“It rendered your point completely devoid of nuance, but no.”

Dirk uses his forearms to prop up his weight and get a good look at him. Jake squeezes himself through his trousers while making eye contact; Dirk’s cock swells in his pants beneath the heat of his lap. Jake makes a rough sound in his throat. 

“Is it because I worked...overtime, this week?”

“And…?”

“And…” Jake squeezes Dirk’s thigh and tries to think. “The week before that?”

“See. You’re not as stupid as you look.”

Dirk collapses onto his back, eyes glued to the ceiling. Jake watches him, waiting for some behavioral indicator on what his next move should be. 

“So it’s all settled then?”

“What do you think?”

Jake is always eager to hear things have been settled between them, as if marital conflict is a bill and all he has to do is flash his wallet. He leans down to kiss Dirk’s neck, slipping his hands into the silky robe to feel his body, stroking the taut muscles in his stomach and running his finger over each divot in his rib cage.

“You told me to save my suicidal theatrics for another time.”

“Come on now. Those weren’t my exact words, mate.”

He rubs one nipple with his thumb and Dirk leans into the touch, black robe sliding further off his pale shoulders and exposing his naked body.

“You look good in it,” Jake comments. “Exotic. A little camp, but sexy as hell.”

“Fuck you. You’re the campiest piece of shit I know.”

Jake slides a knee between Dirk’s thighs and feels the heat of his erection right away. He nudges it and Dirk grinds down.

“Take off your pants.”

Jake doesn’t have to be told twice. He leans back on his bum, lifting his legs over Dirk so he can sit upright and shuck off his shoes. He stands to undo his belt, pulling it through the loops in one smooth motion. He lets his pants drop to the floor - no underwear. The socks stay on.

He snaps the belt in his hands to get Dirk’s attention and laughs when he breaks his neck at the sound of the noise.

“Just kidding,” he says.

Jake gets back on the couch and settles between Dirk’s long legs. Dirk twitches when Jake spits in his palm and squeezes their dicks together in his calloused hand. His hands fly to Jake’s ass, slapping it, digging his fingers into the flesh and pulling him closer. Their cocks slide together and Dirk sucks in air through his teeth.

“Fuck me.”

Jake massages Dirk’s calves before sliding down to his ass with both hands, spreading his cheeks and that tight little hole in the center. He teases it with his thumb before pressing the tip inside.

“Don’t need it,” Dirk grunts.

His eyes flutter shut when Jake hooks his thumbs inside his ass to stretch it sideways. It softens and opens right up for him.

“That’s for sure innit?”

He leans a hairy forearm on Dirk’s sternum and pushes two fingers into his ass with next to no resistance, scissoring his warm, slicked up insides before quickly adding a third. He thrusts his fingers inside while Dirk struggles with shortness of breath.

“I’m sorry about all the overtime,” Jake says suddenly, pushing three fingers into Dirk’s mouth. “I wanted to be with you. Missed you all day.” Jake pulls his fingers out and rubs Dirk’s spit on his dick. “Didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“Not worried,” Dirk says tersely. “I don’t worry.”

“Okay, sweet.”

Dirk narrows his eyes and Jake crooks his fingers. 

“Not…” Dirk’s voice cracks. “Not sweet either.”

“Sweet for me, though, aren’tcha?”

Jake shifts, leaning down until their chests are pressed flushed together and he can breathe into Dirk’s ear. He wiggles his fingers still lodged in his ass, trying to brush his prostate.

“Sweet when you opened up your tight little arsehole earlier, eh?”

He pulls out his fingers and Dirk’s hole tightens around air. Dirk grinds his teeth together and jerks his hips. 

“Are you going to stick your dick in me or is forcing me to listen to the world’s shittiest apology your kink now?”

“That all depends,” Jake pulls back, stroking his own cock. “Are you still mad?”

Isn’t that a trick question? Of course Dirk is still mad. In fact, Dirk never stopped being mad from the last time they had this argument. New Mad has just been piling on top of Old Mad, mixing together and decomposing at different rates, like layers of shit in a chicken coop. 

The entire relationship is composting.

“I’m fine,” Dirk says, hooking his ankles behind Jake’s back. He pulls their bodies flush. “Now fuck me.”

“Glad we could get to the heart of the matter, love.”

Unfortunately for Jake and Dirk, this is definitively, undeniably, without a doubt, not the heart of the matter, nor the heart of any matter they’ve had up until thus far.

No, the heart of the matter is still tucked away, hidden beneath layers of cognitive dissonance, buried along with the last of their autonomy and self-respect. The heart of the matter is their relationship was founded on trauma bonding and mutually insecure attachment styles, and no amount of kinky sex or wishful thinking is going to change that. 

As Jake prepares to fuck Dirk in the home they built together, on the leather couch in front of a mounted stag head and an audience of puppets, he realizes they should probably break up.

“Gunna put it in now.”

Jake spreads Dirk’s asshole with his thumbs, nudging it with the blunt head of his cock, watching the muscle give as he sinks in a few centimeters. It’s incredibly soft and wet inside him, already slicked through with oil and thoroughly stretched by their fingers. Dirk arches his back, bearing down weight in his hips, trying to breeze through the penetration and get Jake’s cock bumping his prostate.

“Easy there buck,” Jake says. 

Dirk’s toes curl whenever Jake talks to him like livestock, a horse - anything but a person. Jake gathers up all the spit in his mouth and aims for the juncture where they’re connected, fucking the saliva into him in one slow stroke. Dirk stuffs a fist into his mouth to muffle the sound coming out.

“That’s it,” Jake coos.

His asshole suctions Jake’s cock hard, pulling him in all the way to the root. Jake drags his dick back out before rocking forward again, fucking him open. The muscles in his ass cinch tight when Jake strikes his prostate for the first time. 

“Fffuck.”

Jake holds the angle and repeats the motion.

Dirk slaps the back of his thighs, curling his fingers into the muscle, pulling him closer, urging him harder, faster, punishing him with the pace. 

“Harder, harder, fuck, harder!”

“I’m going...as hard as I can, love.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Jake smiles at him fondly.

“Why is that? You’re a wiley little bugger but you just need some love. Isn’t that right?”

“If you call... _fuck_.” Dirk makes a sound like the air is getting punched out of him. “Fuck. If you call blowing out my asshole love.”

“I don’t.” Jake grins, holding Dirk’s knees spread. “But you do. You love to…ughhn.” He continues moving his hips, sliding in out of Dirk’s hole. “Twist love ‘til it’s twisted. Have to have it your way.”

Jake leans forward, spreading Dirk’s knees further, sinking in as deep as he can. He kisses his chest and then his neck, before bracing his weight on his arms, one on either side of Dirk’s head as he fucks him, their naked bodies reunited at last.

“You need so much love I have to - to drill it into you directly.” Jake groans. “Tough love, some might call it. But really you’re just…” Jake snaps his hips hard and Dirk whimpers, nearly choking on it. “Touch starved.”

Dirk covers Jake’s face with his hand, not because there’s anything wrong with his face, but because he doesn’t need Jake staring him down while he lets hentai level dialogue dribble out of his mouth. Jake growls, grabbing Dirk’s wrist, prying his hand from his face. 

“I wanna to see you,” Jake confesses.

“It’s not - not my fault you make such a stupid face when you ffuck me.”

Dirk turns his head to the side and jerks his hips impatiently. Jake grunts, stifling a much louder sound, and releases his hold on Dirk’s wrist. He stills Dirk’s hips with both hands, holding him in place.

“Why do you always have to be such a little cunt? You’re not in charge of everything! You’re not running the show.”

“You sure?”

Dirk bucks again, like a bull trying to throw its rider, managing to move his hips briefly before Jake grinds the movement to a halt with more force, driving his cock deeper inside him.

“Certain. It’s not enough for you is it?”

It’s easier to control him face down, pulling his body across the couch each time Jake drives his cock deeper, pinning him to the couch with his dick. Dirk relinquishes a deep, guttural groan when Jake thrusts into him and his legs give out. 

The only soft spot Dirk has is halfway up his ass, go figure.

His erection pulses, trapped between his stomach and the couch. It slides across the sticky leather, through a pool of sweat. Dirk flinches, trying to lift his hips and pull away from the hot, overstimulating friction. The movement only makes it so far, halted by Jake’s weight above him. He tries sliding a hand beneath his body to protect his dick, but Jake grabs his arm, pulling it behind his back.

“Ah ah ah,” he parrots. “No hands.”

Dirk jerks his arm back and twists around, Jake's cock slipping out before Dirk realigns it, facing him. He wraps his legs around Jake's waist and digs his nails into his thighs, pulling him as close as he can and tightening around his cock. It throbs inside him, while Dirk palms his own erection hard and fast. Jake whimpers and his hips stutter like a jammed printer. 

“Ruin me,” Dirk says. And he means it. “Destroy my ass with that cock.”

Jake’s aching dick is thick and full in the narrow passage of his ass, even as regularly well-fucked as Dirk is, his insides wrap impossibly snug around Jake’s cock. He presses a hand over Dirk’s dirty mouth so he doesn’t go soft from how much Dirk hates himself, even when he talks dirty.

“You’ve said plenty, possum.”

Is there a Dirk Strider anywhere in the multiverse that has ever shut the fuck up? He continues to talk into the meat of his hand, dripping with spit, feeling the edge of his teeth every now and then like back when he handled gators.

“Love, baby, sweetheart - I’m close.”

“Don’t cum,” says Dirk. “I swear to fucking god, if you cum, if you don’t get keep fucking me - fuck, yes, like that, right there, fuck.”

Jake squeezes his throat, more out of a culmination of the day's frustration and a desire to silence him than for the benefit of Dirk’s impending orgasm. The lack of oxygen increases his heart rate nonetheless, winding every muscle in his body tighter. His cock is aching, leaking against his stomach.

The hand around Dirk’s throat is familiar and warm; an unbudging pillar of strength. There’s a comfort in the pressure, especially from Jake’s palm, the way the heels of his hands press down harder when he tries to get away.

He bears down more of his weight, until there’s no space left for him to take in air. His legs spasm once, twice, and on the third time his cock jerks against his belly. It jerks again when Jake slams back into the hilt, jamming his dick into Dirk’s prostate and forcing out a spurt of cum. 

Dirk makes a strangled sound as Jake holds him by the throat, driving into him faster, less coordinated than before. Dirk locks up inside, spunk shooting straight up his stomach. Jake’s dick responds in kind, pulsing, jumping, fucking him stupid. 

Jake chokes him out until he’s pumped Dirk full of cum and his vision is spotty. 

They don’t bother catching their breath together.

Jake rolls off him and onto the floor. His back is peppered with clusters of half moon nail marks. Dirk lifts a wrist above his head, staring at the two shallow cuts he made. There’s still a little bit of dried blood, but it doesn't feel like enough. (It never does.) Jake finds his phone under the coffee table, where he rereads the rest of the text messages between him and Dirk, curled up on his side.

5:43PM GT: Youre worrying me  
5:43PM TT: How is it that even when I’m suicidal, you find a way to make it about you?  
5:44PM GT: What do you want from me?  
5:44PM TT: It’s not about what I want. It’s about what’s right, and what’s right is you finally taking responsibility.  
5:45PM GT: Responsibility?  
5:45PM GT: I’m at work right now!!  
5:45PM TT: That’s exactly the problem.  
5:45PM GT: Not my circus not my monkey.  
5:45PM TT: It never is, is it? You wouldn’t take responsibility for that monkey if it showed up at the house wearing a nametag with your address, took a shit in the palm of its own hand, and slapped you with it.  
5:45PM TT: Hell, you wouldn’t take responsibility for wiping your own ass if shit didn’t show up brown.  
5:48PM GT: Thats a good one! Did you make that up just now?  
5:48PM TT: Yeah I did. Thanks.  
5:49PM TT: If you don’t come home now, I’m going to slit my fucking throat.  
5:50PM GT: Crikey that escalated quickly  
5:50PM TT: Are you leaving?  
5:51PM GT: Sorry love youll have to save the suicidal theatrics for another time!  
5:51PM GT: We both know youre not going to do it!  
5:52PM TT: How much money are you willing to place on that bet?  
5:52PM GT: Well Ive been right before.  
5:52PM TT: About what?  
5:55PM GT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumpelstiltskin  
5:55PM TT: If I wasn’t going to do it before, I’m definitely going to now.  
5:55PM GT: Sure thing love!  
5:55PM TT: Really babe.  
5:55PM TT: I’m going to do it this time.  
6:01PM GT: Sorry love Im in the car now !Not Delivered  
6:05PM GT: Keep the Kraft warm for me! !Not Delivered  
6:07PM GT: Dirk please dont do anything foolish Im on my way! !Not Delivered  
6:10PM GT: I love you more than anything! !Not Delivered

The room is quiet. They’re both breathing evenly. 

“Welp,” says Jake. “It’s about time we broke it off innit?”

For the first time in what feels like eight and a half years, Dirk doesn’t disagree. The entire relationship has atrophied inside-out, like a rotten tooth. 

“I think we can both do better."

They sit in silence in the broken afterglow that follows, both of them imagining they were somewhere else. Jake thinks about the forest on the side of the road.

It’s time to get out of the car.


End file.
